r ^ 



W^ 



■iS» 



I H6e Lumbermen's 
I Obligation to 

I the South 






BY 



Mir r 7 



Oi H. L. WERNICKE 




* 
* 
* 

I I 

t t 

^ t 

f "Distributed By % 

^ Departmentof ^^ 

I; Cut-Over Land Utilization |; 

t Southern Pine Association $ 

4» Ne\r Orleans, La. *> 

I I 

^ <♦ 

.♦. ■#. A. A. jfc. .♦. .♦. .♦. .♦. J». ■#. .♦. J*. .♦. A. ^■».. A >j >. .ti A iti iti A A >ti >tt A >ti A >tl A ifa >tW 



By Transfer 

NOV 3 1923 



r^ 






FOREWORD. 



O. H. L. WERNICKE, 

Inventor, Organizer of Industries and 
Booster of Social Progress. 

HIS home is in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 
but he is also Vice-President of the 
Pensacola Tar & Turpentine Co., Gulf 
Point, Florida, and spends much of his time in 
the South. 

He has had ten years of practical experience 
in agricultural pursuits, forestry, and care of 
domestic animals under the direction of his 
father, who graduated from a leading agri- 
cultural school in Europe; and for many years 
was engaged in the production and sale of 
agricultural machinery, which required intimate 
personal relations with farmers, throughout the 
Union and in some foreign lands. 

Mr. Wernicke has had twenty years experience 
as a manufacturer of wood, metal and paper 
products, and for fifteen years has been inter- 
ested in the distillation of wood for pine pro- 
ducts and charcoal. 

Incidental to these major activities, he has 
devised numerous systems and business methods 
now generally accepted as standard the world 
over. He was the originator of sectional book- 
cases and a pioneer in the exploitation of sec- 
tional furniture construction throughout the 
industrial world. 

Many other achievements, discoveries and 
inventions are credited to his activity, including 
improvements in gasoline engines, air com- 
pressors, pneumatic wheels, lubricating devices, 
lumber driers, fire resisting insulating materials 
for safes, and the like. 

Mr. Wernicke is a timber owner and a prac- 
tical logger; he has had wide experience in or- 
ganizing industrial and other enterprises, and 
his many business relations have also embraced 
banking, advertising, merchandising, and in- 



dustrial and mechanical engineering. He is 
a member of the American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers. The Federal Government frequently 
consults him on matters pertaining to the 
treatment of lumber for given purposes and 
in standardizing the Government's office equip- 
ment. 

In a political way Mr. Wernicke was at one 
time appointed head of the Michigan prisons. 
During his six years in office he initiated the 
legislative and practical reforms which resulted 
in the turning of huge annual deficits into 
profits, and the taking of a large percentage 
of prison inmates from behind the bars and 
placing them as honor men on state account 
farms or in numerous other industries, such as 
brick and tile making, canning food, the re- 
clamation of waste lands, animal husbandry, etc. 

He laughingly admits that he is visionary and 
an optimist, but rejoices over the fact that 
some of his dreams have come true. His 
activities have been responsible for many 
successful enterprises, some of which bear his 
name, and give employment to many thousands 
where no jobs were to be had before. The 
established or safe and conventional grooves 
of industrial life have held no appeal for him. 
His is the pioneering type of mind and a per- 
sonality which delights in the doing of things 
"that can't be done". 

Mr. Wernicke knows the South. He under- 
stands its problems and appreciates the diffi- 
culties which retard its greatest development. 
His intimates among its lumbermen and its 
other industries are numbered by hundreds. 
His personal knowledge of Southern conditions 
has been acquired on the spot and goes well 
back into the preceding century. 

Mr. Wernicke is now 56 years old. He tips 
"six foot one" and the chap who keeps up with 
"Dad's" 250 pounds of bone and muscle on a 
tramp through the woods will enjoy his supper. 

He in no uncertain terms defines what he be- 
lieves to be the Southern Pine Lumbermen's 
obligation to the South. Some will agree and 
others disagree with his views that the lumber- 
men are in duty bound with their own capital 

2 



to pursue agriculture in any of its branches, 
primarily the raising of food and cloth-producing 
animals. Others of his views will undoubtedly 
differ from some preconceptions. 

In the nature of things no public utterance 
could be excepted from the inexorable law of 
divergent individual opinions. Be that as it 
may, his message has a punch; he has himself 
"done things" and we welcome this oppor- 
tunity to present his ideas to the reader, as it 
is our purpose to collaborate and make of record 
the views of thinking men who are studying 
our problem. 

Department of Cut-Over Land Utilization, 

SOUTHERN PINE ASSOCIATION. 



Let's Journey Through Cut-Over 
Land. 

I do not mean your little patch of ten, fifty 
or a hundred thousand acres. You have been 
over parts of that before and when you had 
your map along you could generally tell in what 
direction home was located and how many hours 
it would take to get back. That is not the 
kind of journey I have in mind. I have seen 
a great many of these little individual patches 
and am losing interest in them. When I was 
younger our hundred acre farm looked big 
to me, but ,when I came back home from the 
corn fields of Kansas and the wheat farms of 
Dakota where as many as fifty self-binders 
could be counted at work in a single field, 
that little old stumpy Wisconsin farm of ours 
had shrunken so I could hardly see it, so it 
seemed to me, but what had really happened 
was that my vision had expanded or had changed 
places. I no longer viewed the world as a 
fringe to that farm but looked upon it in its 
true proportions, as a mere speck on the universe. 

And now, if you will get ready and take a 
little run with me over two hundred million 
acres of idle land, most of it cut-over, I feel 
tolerably certain when we get back that your 
own little "steen" thousand acre tract won't 
look nearly so big to you as it did, and I'm 
thinking it won't look so big, either, that you'd 
be afraid to wrestle with it alone. 

ON FOOT? 

Let me see! Well, to go over this two hundred 
million acre tract we ought really to cross 
each section once anyway, so let us put them 
all in a row first; it will be easier to find our way 
about and will avoid duplication. We are 
going on foot because we can see more of the 
country that way, but it will be necessary to 
have a snack to eat and something to drink on 
the way. We were to cross each section once, 
and there are 312,500 sections in two hundred 
million acres; that means an equal number of 
miles to be traveled; and we were going to walk, 



but I find that by making a 20-mile hike every- 
day for 365 days, it will be forty-three years 
before we get back home, and something might 
happen in the mean time that we'd hate to 
miss. 

IN AN AUTO? 

Let us go in a Ford. That will let us cover 
a hundred sections a day instead of twenty, 
and get us home after eight years and seven 
months, if we don't have too much tire trouble. 

We will take some spare tires along. They 
say one set of tires, with luck, is good for 5,000 
miles, so we will need 250 spares to do the trick, 
but if they weigh ten pounds each we can't 
well carry the load and there is the question 
of grub for the journey — we'll say two pounds 
a day per person — that makes 12,500 pounds 
for the trip, besides the ton or more of spare 
tires. 

It doesn't seem to work our right that way, 
and we must carry water, too, and there might 
be trouble in finding gas and oil along the way, 
so on further consideration let's make the trip 
by aircraft. That's the lastest word for getting 
over fast and then, too, it will afford us a better 
view of things and the ferry tolls will be avoided, 
which foot up when you go by auto. It cost 
be $27.00 ferry toll in the short, trip from Pensa- 
cola to New Orleans last year. That trip only 
took two days and I shudder to think of keeping 
up such a clip for nearly nine years. Nothing 
doing! It would beggar Sam Jones and pay 
for half a dozen air ships, so it's decided that we 
are going land looking by aero. That's the 
only way, anyhow, where time is money. 

BY AEROPLANE? 

Now, this air thing, they say, can do an average 
of a hundred miles an hour, so we'll soon be 
back if we do ten hours day — that's a thousand 
miles — and if we take an early start on the 
morning of February the thirteenth, barring 
accidents we shall be back by Christmas eve — 
that'll be going some! But they do say that 
airplanes are really quite reliable now compared 
to what they were before the war. 

The idea of getting back for Christmas makes 
a hit with me for we will need a little rest after 



flying 312 days, but we haven't finished. 
While we were on this little journey, so our 
friend Mr. A. G. T. Moore, Director of Cut-Over 
Land Utilization, Southern Pine Association, 
says, some one has been real busy logging and 
thereby adding 81 miles a day to the long end 
of the road. This makes 25,000 miles more to 
go — the same as once around the earth — so we 
go on another 25-day air trip after the holidays. 



But this thing is getting on my nerves. Where 
will it end. For, while taking that little twenty- 
five thousand mile air ride, going nearly two 
miles a minute, still another strip is added as 
long as from New Orleans to 'Frisco. This 
isn't much, and having been over 'Frisco thirteen 
times on the other two trips we will let this 
little end piece go now and watch the logging. 
We can't walk eighty miles a day but we can 
take the auto now. We have not yet seen all 
the cut-over land, because it grows so fast, but 
we have seen enough to realize that there is 
quite a lot of it besides the little patch we live on. 

The situation reminds us of old H. K. Twofist, 
who made "his pile" in Colorado, and his son, 
John. John had been to college and abroad, 
and in the course of time concluded to go into 
business and settle down. This pleased old 
H. K., who asked: "Say, John, how much 
money do you want for this thing." "Oh, a 
million dollars will do. Dad." "What. A 
M-M-M-Mil-lion DOLLARS ! ! Why. John, 
that's a hell of a lot of money." "Oh, no. 
Dad, it isn't so much, if you say it quick like 
they do in Wall Street." We have so long 
been accustomed to speak of cut-over lands in 
terms of so many million acres, and to say it 
"so quick", that our sense of proportions needs 
readjustment. 

WILDERNESS COMPOUNDED ANNUALLY. 

Let us get this thing down to realities. We 
can manage if we will forget for the time all 
the cut-over land except that part of it which 
current logging adds to the total. This little 
annual addition is big enough to begin on and 

6 



when we have that problem settled it will hep 
a lot in dealing with the main issue. 

So in order to plan out the uses for this annual 
contribution, said to be about fifteen million 
acres, we will cut it up into squares or strips 
of a million each. This, then, gives us fifteen 
such parcels, each forty miles square, or fifteen 
strips one mile wide and sixteen hundred miles 
long. It doesn't seem now as if it would be 
difficult to manage these little parcels, does it. 

To begin with, there is the soldier and sailor 
colonization scheme. It is only an idea as 
yet, but a good one if it works out in practice 
the way it looks on paper. Let us assume that 
it will, and that along with swamp and other 
available lands it will dispose of one of the fifteen 
squares or strips of cut-over land each year. 
That leaves only fourteen more to be cared for 
in some other way. 

Now, let us also assume, because it is not a 
known factor, that the ordinary course of immi- 
gration and drift from other vocations will 
dispose of another such parcel. That will 
leave but thirteen. But as many of our land 
owners are doing something themselves in the 
way of using the land let us put that down for 
another parcel, and we have only twelve left. 

The railroads, too, are interested in settlers 
and herds for these lands and may be depended 
upon to do something, so let us meet this prospect 
with another parcel, and that leaves eleven. 

PRINCIPAL REMAINS INTACT. 

The several states and local communities are 
interested and the result of this force may 
dispose of another parcel, leaving but ten, but 
just what to do with the remainder before the 
year is up so we can begin over with the next 
contribution, which mean while accumulates, 
presents a problem that bothers me. I suspect 
that we need guns of longer range, larger caliber 
and greater power before we may hope to over- 
come the odds against us in this situation. 

To clear all this land as we go is out of the 
question, for even if we have the two hundred 
and sixty odd million dollars annually required 
to pay for the labor we couldn't obtain or 



care for the half-million laborers required to 
do the work. It has taken fifty years to put 
six million inhabitants on the soil and in the 
towns of Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska where 
the land is richer and did not require clearing. 
The settlement of these states occurred at a 
time when great waves of land hungry human 
tides were moving westward over the face 
of the earth. To expect anything like it to 
happen with our cut-over land situation is a 
delusion; meanwhile taxes are mounting higher 
while public improvements lag. 

Five million acres divided into 100-acre tracts, 
gives us 50,000 home units. Assuming that a 
desirable settler's family represents four persons, 
and that half the influx thus set in motion will 
drift to our towns and cities, the plans men- 
tioned would add from three to four hundred 
thousand souls to the population of the South. 
This is beyond all precedent. No new country 
ever experienced such a rate of immigration for 
a protracted period; and where are all these 
people to be had or what shall cause them to 
leave other homes and come South? 

THE LAND OWNER'S OBLIGATION. 

The sheep and the swine, the cattle and goats 
which can supply the only sure solution must 
be had in sufficient numbers so that their increase 
may populate the total available area within a 
period of ten or fifteen years. This our land- 
owners can do, must do, and will do because 
there is no one else in sight who is willing or 
able enough to do it for them. The landowners 
alone have the incentive, also the resources 
and the business capacity, to set in motion and 
direct the forces which shall mark a turn in the 
tide, if it is to be done in the present generation. 

OPPORTUNITY AND ORGANIZATION, 

"Give me men to match my mountains ; 
Give me men to match my plains; 
Give me men with empires in their purpose 
And new eras in their brains." 

The sentiment, and the spirit portrayed in 
these lines borrowed from a Fourth of July 
oration delivered by Sam Walter Foss, accu- 

8 



rately echo the challenge to combat which the 
cut-over land situation hurls at the Southern 
lumbermen. It cries for men "with empires in 
their purpose and new eras in their brains". 
It has no place for those whose wish-bones 
occupy the place where their back-bone ought 
to be. It is the clarion call of the bugle for 
men who dare to venture upon the waste places 
of the earth with a spirit that defies all obstacles 
and sponges the word "defeat" from its lexicon. 

We hear the challenge and we have the men 
for whom victory will be history's answer 
when they have been aroused by a clearer view 
and greater appreciation of the scope of the task, 
and who, because of its magnitude, will find there- 
in a zest for the game. There is about as much 
chance of getting into heaven by your wife's 
religion, as in settling this cut-over land situa- 
tion by sending the boy to mill. The only way 
to do anything is to act in the right way and it 
will be my purpose here to assist in clarifying 
the situation in such manner as to bring our 
own latent forces into action. 

Your Cut-Over Land Department is a fine 
thing and marks a logical beginning on the 
task before you. It has done and is doing a 
big work which could not be so well done by 
individuals, but it will not and can not do every- 
thing, and without the support resulting from 
individual achievement the department would 
resemble a single track railway without terminal 
facilities. It is your clearing house for informa- 
tion and ideas; it can determine and promote 
desirable legislation and foster a favorable public 
sentiment. All this it may do, and more. 
Organized activity along the lines which the 
Department has pursued is one of the big helps 
in the several forces which must work together 
to build the "new era" of our desires. 

The Cut-Over Land Department must be 
given the means and authority to command the 
services of able men on the major problems 
affecting the profitable use of the idle land. 
Their skill and potential value should in turn 
be directed by a practical administrator. That 
is about as far as the Department can go with 
advantage at this stage of the situation, and 
anything less than that will not, as I firmly 



believe, produce the desired results. While 
the cost of such an organization may seem large 
in its aggregated sums, it will be found that the 
unit of expense per member or acre when com- 
pared with the returns will have been small and 
a very profitable investment as well. 

In order to justify any form of organization 
supported by your association, its efforts must 
result in the actual and profitable use of the 
lands at a rate and in such a way as will consti- 
tute a successful demonstration of their worth. 
Only by such measures may the public's in- 
terest be enlisted sufficiently to insure the good 
use of all this land within a reasonable period 
of time, from the standpoint of the private and 
public interests now concerned. Anything less 
than that involves the risk of adding further 
disappointments to the sum of past experiences. 

The success of any great undertaking must 
of necessity be founded on possible achievements 
and not Upon illusory hopes, and our efforts 
must be guided by such facts as history, expe- 
rience and good sense confirm. Other hopes 
and wishes must be put aside. 

With the foregoing principles in mind, I shall 
endeavor to clarify the present cut-over land 
situation by subjecting to a logical analysis 
some of the thoughts in the minds of the land- 
owners which are receiving more or less pub- 
icity, and to indicate measures in support of 
a definite policy of action. 

PRO BONO PUBLICO. 

To them that hath is. (Old version). 
They who hath must help they who hath not. 
(New version). 

The facts and fancies that have been contri- 
buted to the subject in times past, have not as 
yet produced that degree of initiative which 
rests upon confidence, nor do they seem to 
inspire decisive actions on the part of those whose 
presence is a reality right here and now and 
who possess both the means and the ability 
to do the vital things that change dreams 
into facts. During the pioneer days of America, 
it was every man for himself and the Devil take 
the hindmost. The public weal was lost to view 

10 



in the struggle for individual existence. This 
spirit, born of earlier necessity, still pervades 
our businessmen, but times have changed and 
under present day conditions self-sufficiency is 
no longer permissible. We have come upon 
times when private advantage cannot be so well 
pursued or so easily attained with contempt 
of public opinion and a disregard of communal 
prosperity. 

SKELETONS OF THE PAST. 

The expanding area of Southern cut-over 
pine land is a stubborn fact, not a theory, and 
until the daily expansion from logging operations 
is met or stopped no adequate beginning will 
have been made to rescue these lands from a 
state of idleness. The one big fact that sticks 
out all over this problem is the comparative 
failure, despite all past efforts during a quarter 
of a century or more, to utilize the generality 
of these lands for small farming purpose by at- 
tracting and holding settlers. The causes 
which underlie this situation are more generally 
understood than admitted; its proven unde- 
sirability for small farms, by no means condemns 
the land as valueless for other equally important 
uses, but it clearly shows that the further effort 
of the owners must be expended in ways that 
are more in keeping with its potential utility. 

In this respect the teachings of history are 
too plain and convincing to admit of denial 
or doubt. Evidence of sporadic results here 
or there is not wanting, of course, but no ade- 
quate, useful purpose can be realized by hiding 
or minimizing any negative feature with the 
hope that it may fool someone else. Where 
this has been tried, it has hurt all concerned. 

Such lessons, however, are valuable if we heed 
their teachings and change the angle of our de- 
sires towards the attainable and away from the 
"gold at the end of the rainbow". Enough is 
now known regarding the desirable and profitable 
uses to which cut-over land lends itself to warrant 
a serious beginning of its proper use by its owners 
and without waiting for something or other to 
happen whereby the task may be shifted on to 
other shoulders. The right start of this vast 
work waits upon nothing more difficult than an 

11 



"attitude of mind" which recognizes the neces- 
sity of convincing others by showing results. 
Whatever else a people may desire, they must 
have food and clothing, and never before in 
the history of all mankind has this fact been 
more forcibly emphasized and acknowledged as 
now; nor has the opportunity for profit by turning 
an empire of idle land into productive channels 
been so good; and it may never become more 
urgent or inviting than at this time. 

PROMISES AND PIE CRUST. 

Two years have elapsed since the New Orleans 
meeting was held, at which all this was foreseen, 
met with patriotic promises and numerous able 
contributions, and encouraging responses were 
then and there recorded. It was declared that 
the "new era has dawned". The great war has 
come, and is now almost a thing of the past. 
The needs of the human race as there empha- 
sized have since been multiplied in their in- 
tensity, but the opportunity for contributing 
generously to these needs by putting the land 
to some use was soon forgotten. I relate this 
instance not in a spirit of carping criticism but 
with a desire to prove that the attitude of 
mind which has so long obsessed the land owners 
is not a consistent one and contains no assurance 
of future success. This "mental state" may 
be changed into action by a candid and logical 
presentation of the vital factors involved in the 
situation, and though my opinions as herein 
expressed may not prove sufficiently convincing 
to produce immediate results, it is to be hoped 
that they will cause some readers to think and 
act on lines which will not fail to "remove the 
fly from the ointment". 

Crust and Filler = Complete Pie. 
Promises and Action = Achievement. 

Such pride of personal opinion as I may have, 
suffers not at all by adopting a better course 
when it has been developed by an exchange of 
views. It is not my purpose here to offer a 
specific, but rather to arouse the latent forces 
in others, who are more capable of dealing with 
this situation than any single individual. Like- 
wise, I trust that what I may say will not be 

12 



misconstrued as lacking in harmony with the 
policies of your organization, because polifcies 
change with added understanding of conditions, 
and are of necessity unstable. The purpose 
which I have in mind is in its essence the same 
as the purpose of those landowners who are 
cooperating through their association, and that 
is, the use of the land which lies idle and is a 
liability of the owners as well as of the entire 
country. 

The plea that lumbermen are not farmers is 
invalid and unworthy of utterance by business- 
men. Time was when they were not lumbermen, 
and when the timber is gone they will cease to 
be lumbermen. If he will, a businessman may 
be anything which his opportunity and his 
self-interest requires. As an inevitable sequence 
of the lumbering operations and as a vital eco- 
nomic factor incidental thereto, the cut-over 
land is a feature which intrudes itself into the 
business of lumbering, and so long as its poten- 
tial utility is ignored it presents a wasteful 
liability. Most of our great enterprises owe 
their success to the recovery of by-products 
which required the aid and understanding of 
arts quite foreign to the technique of the ori- 
ginal venture. The lumbering business is not 
exceptional in this respect; on the contrary, the 
saving of various by-products from its mills 
and its forests are proven necessities and accom- 
plished facts, but the one great by-product 
permanent in character and indestructible in 
its nature is the cut-over land. It alone sup- 
plies the answer to the oft repeated query: 
"After the lumbermen, what?" 

The land is here; it is a condition; so is the 
lumberman or ex-lumberman who owns the 
land. It requires tremendous resources and ex- 
ceptional business ability to bring all these 
vast areas under production. The indispensible 
resources of capital, energy and business ability 
requisite to the task are all at hand and require 
only to be mobilized. Moreover, these essen- 
tials are not presently to be obtained elsewhere 
in adequate measure, thus leaving the owners 
face to face with the naked fact that no solution 
of the major problem will unfold to bring in 
desirable outsiders in sufficient numbers until 
the certainty of "pay dirt" and methods of 

13 



getting it have been convincingly demonstrated. 
This thing is our own baby and is entitled to 
the best of growing up that we can give it. 

REFORESTATION. 

I am quite in accord with the views presented 
in the address of Mr. H. T. Cory, Consulting 
Engineer, United States Reclamation Service, 
Department of the Interior, "Forestry vs. 
Agriculture", (pages 6-7). The Federal or 
State Governments must take title to the 
lands and assume supervision over reforestation 
work for the benefit of future generations. 
Private enterprise does not meet the require- 
ments of this situation and can do little more than 
encourage Federal and State activities along 
these lines. To an appreciable extent cut-over 
lands reforest themselves and such areas should 
be defined, protected and exempted from all 
taxes until they may be incorporated in the 
National or State Forest Reserve. 

The lumbermen are so conversant with this 
phase of our problem that extended remarks 
here would be without purpose. I only wish to 
suggest that all owners of cut-over lands may 
add to their value and attractiveness for future 
use, whether by themselves or other persons, 
if ten acres on each quarter section be fenced an 
reforested. The aggregate of such wood lots 
would be large enough to exert a favorable in- 
fluence on the climate, provide shade, fuel, 
building material, etc. Such reforestation would 
in other ways contribute greatly to the value 
and desirability of the remaining lands for grazing 
or other purposes. 

CONSERVATION. 

Land Clearing and Value of Stumps. 

The very intimate relations which I have 
maintained with the pinewood Distillation 
Industry and other similar by-product recovery 
methods during the past twenty years, and my 
practical experience gained from the successful 
conduct of such an enterprise, which claims the 
distinction of being — with one single exception — 
the oldest in point of continuous operation among 
a few remaining survivors, enable me, so I 

14 



believe, to speak with convincing authority on 
such matters. 

The recovery of turpentine and other valuable 
products from "mill waste" has been a complete 
failure, as many lumbermen know from costly 
experience, because such material does not 
yield enough product to pay for the cost of its 
recovery. This fact has been established by 
hundreds of experiments conducted at a cost 
which represents a sum so huge in the aggregate 
as to discourage further attempts in this di- 
rection. 

Some measure of success has been achieved 
by utilizing the top wood, limbs and small 
timber for pulp or box-board stock when taken 
out coincident with logging operations, and in 
such circumstances the mill waste has a value 
as fuel, and a portion of the slabs make pulp. 
An operation of this nature involves equipment, 
the first cost of which is so great as to require 
separate capital and special corporate organiza- 
tion apart from the lumbering business. I 
may say, however, that this industry is one of 
great promise for the South. The raw material 
is here in great abundance and there is an ever 
increasing demand for paper and other products 
composed largely of wood fibre, but the industry 
does not now lend itself to a utilization of ma- 
terial from old cut-over lands and so long as 
logging operations continue the material thus 
made available which is not suitable for lumber 
may be brought to the pulp mill in adequate 
supply at a very low cost. In consequence, unless 
a process is used whereby the resinous products 
contained in the fat wood from cut-over lands 
may be separated and recovered as well as the 
pulp, there is no possibility of deriving revenue 
from such lands by making pulp wood, for the 
cost of labor and transportation alone is pro- 
hibitive. 

Another process, known as "extraction", 
whereby fat wood from cut-over land is hogged 
and finely shredded and then soaked in a solvent 
(such as gasoline) to dissolve the resinous con- 
tents, has of late years attracted renewed 
attention. The products obtained by the ex- 
traction process consist of turpentine, pine oil, 
and rosin. The power necessary to decimate 

15 



the wood and carry on the leaching distilling, 
and refining processes, together with other 
capacious equipment, all require large capital 
and centralized operations. The process is a 
technical one beyond the comprehension of 
those without experience in chemistry and 
engineering. There is now but one concern 
in successful operation. Another is passing 
through its third receivership in five years, and 
several new ventures are under contemplation. 
Like the history of steaming turpentine from 
mill waste, considerable sums of money have 
been sunk in such plants. The major product 
being rosin, the wide market for this material 
presents a powerful argument in favor of the 
process. 

The more conventional conversion of fat wood 
is called Destructive Distillation. It consists 
of heating the wood in retorts and collecting the 
crude products of decomposition through water- 
cooled condensors. The residuum from the 
retorts is charcoal, while the condensed liquor 
contains a variety of chemicals, including tar, 
turpentine and pine oil. For purposes of de- 
structive distillation the wood must be "fat" 
and should be smooth enough to pack closely 
in the retorts. Ordinary cordwood is a de- 
sirable form for the purpose. 

The D. D. process (by which abbreviation 
the destructive distillation system is commonly 
known) provides an ideal method for converting 
fat pine when and while there is no competition, 
because the very limited demand for such pro- 
ducts, and especially the pine tar, which repre- 
sents seventy per cent of the crude oils so ob- 
tained, has restricted the development of this 
industry to a dozen small plants, of which four 
only have earned a fair interest on the money 
invested. Only four of these plants have a 
record of operating for five consecutive years in 
a condition of financial health. 

Destructive distillation is very old, but its 
limitations are not widely understood and this 
fact has enabled the promoter with a "new pro- 
cess" to charm real money out of the pockets 
of the credulous sucker to an extent and with 
a recurring persistence which is truly amazing. 
The fair inventory value of all the fat pine D. D. 
plants now in successful operation does not 

16 



exceed one million dollars, and at average prices 
the total products from all the going plants 
does not exceed two and one half million dollars 
annually, which includes exports. 

The annual production of retort or D. D. 
pine tar varies from thirty-five to sixty thousand 
barrels per year. To this must be added the 
yearly production of the old-fashioned pine 
tar, varying from fifteen to forty-five thousand 
barrels; this tar is made in the woods by burning 
fat pine wood under dirt-covered kilns and is 
generally described as "country tar" in the 
markets. Owing to the manner of its production 
this country tar inevitably contains water and 
dirt ranging from 15 to 35% of its volume, and 
its constants are necessarily lacking in uniformity, 
which results in wide discrimination as to prices. 

The total demand for pine tar of both kinds 
fluctuates from a minimum of fifty thousand to 
a maximum of one hundred thousand barrels 
a year, making an average of seventy-five 
thousand. Therefore, whenever the production 
exceeds the average requirements the prices 
slump to unprofitable figures and at other times 
they slump because some one needs the money, 
or has tar in leaky packages, or for no apparent 
reason whatever. New and greater uses for 
pine tar have not responded with encouraging 
results to the constant eff"orts of the producers, 
and until this condition can be surmounted 
a further expansion of productive facilities must 
result disastrously to investors in this industry. 

The average yield of tar by D. D, processes 
amounts to about 50 gallons (or one barrel) 
from the cord of wood. It is, clear, therefore, 
that 75,000 cords of tar wood supplies the annual 
requirements. Taking Mr. Moore's figures of 
"51,600 acres per day" at which the cut-over 
area is increasing, the total annual pine tar 
supply is obtainable from the wood off land 
denuded by logging operations every forty- 
eight hours, provided that all cut-over land 
produced three-quarters of a cord of fat wood 
per acre, which, unfortunately, is not the case. 
Thrifty growing timber does not yield tar or 
turpentine in paying quantities. The stumps 
and other logging waste from cut-over pine 
lands require from five to twenty years after 

17 



logging to mature fat wood suitable for any 
recovery process. The wood does not fatten 
until the sap has rotted off, and then it does 
not do so uniformly. Savannah or flat lands 
are more favorable for good fat wood than the 
rolling or higher lands, and the stumps generally 
contain more resinous material than the top 
wood but they likewise present difficulties in 
their removal and conversion which are so great 
that most of the tar now made is obtained from 
knots and top wood. 

Another problem that presents very serious 
aspects to all forms of fat wood utilization is 
transport, both by road and rail. A cord of 
average fat wood weighs from four to six thous- 
and pounds and the cost of hauling presented 
by the prevailing average of conditions is 
anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar and twenty- 
five cents per cord for each mile, whether it 
be done by animals, trucks or other equip- 
ment, and as the distances from fat wood lands 
to railway loading points are constantly in- 
creasing, and likewise the rail hauls from loading 
stations to the plants, these features have within 
the past few years presented alarming problems 
for solution to those engaged in the pinewood 
distilling industries, by whatever method it 
is carried out. 

I have presented the facts in sufficient detail 
to convince most landowners that the sale or 
conversion of fat wood from cut-over lands is 
not an alluring prospect, and this is further 
emphasized by the fact that only a small por- 
tion, say one-fifth, of the total area of such lands 
contain desirable fat wood in sufficient quantity 
to warrant its recovery; it is also true that only 
a relatively small percentage of the waste wood 
and stumps on the better land is suitable for 
profitable conversion. The incontestable facts 
which I have here presented utterly demolish 
the theory so often and glibly expounded by 
persons possessed of no practical knowledge on 
the subject "that the tar wood will pay for 
clearing the land". Barring a few exceptionally 
favorable tracts and limited areas to be so cleared, 
the total value of all the fat wood in the field, 
minus labor and transport, annually required 
by the several distillation methods now in use 



18 



would not average ten cents an acre, or one-half 
of one per cent of the cost of clearing the land. 

As to the advisability of clearing the generality 
of cut-over lands, I have as yet been unable to 
find sufficient evidence to encourage a belief 
either in its possibilities or desirabilities; the 
exceptions are so rare and rest upon local con- 
ditions of soil and other advantages to such an 
extent that they afford no criterion, but rather 
serve to confirm my convictions, if such proofs 
were needed. 

I have had no little experience in clearing 
land, including the removal of stumps by 
blasting, burning, pulling and otherwise, and 
the best methods for any given set of conditions 
involve a big expense for equipment, labor and 
transportation. So varied are the conditions 
met with in different localities, or even in the 
same locality, and so meager or colored with 
absurdities is the available data respecting such 
operations that they do not present a helpful 
basis for estimating the cost of clearing cut-over 
lands. Some say it is $10.00 per acre; others, 
$25.00, but for the purpose of our mathematics 
let us assume that the cost of clearing is $17.50 
per acre — though I believe double the amount is 
nearer the mark. The sporadic examples of 
cleared lands which here and there attract our 
attention enliven the wish to see more of it 
placed in that condition, and this is a result 
greatly to be desired. Unfortunately, however, 
it is unattainable for several good and sufficient 
reasons, which appear with greater distinctness 
when we turn from the examples cited and view 
the acreage of cut-over land in its totality. 

THE PROBLEM. 

Vast, Colossal, Infinite. 

I do not know how extensive this area really 
is and doubt if any one else really knows, but 
we are agreed that it is vast and is expanding 
at a tremendous rate from day to day by 
cutting the timber, by the ravages of fire, the 
waste of turpentining and through windfalls. 
Hence, if we place such expansion at fifteen mil- 
lion acres a year, after deducting such as may 
have been taken for tillage and grazing purposes, 
it brings the situation near enough to our vision 

19 



to show that few of the present generation will 
live to see even a fair proportion of it so utilized. 
Mr. Moore says that the cut-over area has grown 
considerably during the past ten years. This 
is undoubtedly true and no one assuming to 
express an authoritative opinion has placed 
the accumulative acreage under seventy-five 
million. Many place it at higher figures, and 
Secretary of the Interior, Lane, in support of 
his proposed project for placing the returning 
soldiers on the land, makes the statement that 
there are at least 200,000,000 acres of cut-over 
timber lands, all of which can be reclaimed and 
made available for production. If such an 
area containing two and one-half million 80-acre 
farms were put under a state of profitable 
utilization, it would support an increase in our 
rural population of ten million souls, an equal 
number of cattle, half as many draft animals, 
twice as many hogs, etc. Incidentally, our 
towns and cities in these circumstances would 
grow in proportion, making a total increased 
population of twenty million souls, with an 
aggregate of taxable wealth beyond compu- 
tation. And, best of all, this is not a mirage 
but an attainable reality, worthy of the men 
with "empires in their purpose and new eras 
in their brains". 

THE LUMBERMEN. 

Equal to the Task— If Willing. 

The assumption that our lumbermen friends 
do not possess these attributes is denied by 
their deeds. Nothing is lacking to set in motion 
the processes needed to build this empire and 
inaugurate this era of my prognostications 
but a shift of mental attitude. I feel it in my 
bones that we shall do this thing. The task is 
one which depends on a correct beginning, and 
by discarding some cherished hopes which for 
the time being are vain. 

We do not require a familiarity with higher 
mathematics to understand that it would cost 
$262,500,000.00 to clear the fifteen million 
acres represented by the annual expansion 
of cut-over land areas. Where is this money 
to come from? If it could be had, could it 
not be otherwise employed to better advantage? 

20 



A mere clearing of the land is but one item. 
The buildings, fences, tools, drainage, and other 
indispensible things would treble the figure 
before we arrive at such details as stock, ferti- 
lizer and the like. The cost of clearing adds 
nothing to the potential value of land unless 
it is suitable for cultivation with assured re- 
turns consistent with those prevailing in other 
gainful pursuits. If we had the money to clear 
the land and provide the other improvements, 
from where and by what methods would we 
procure the labor to do the work? At current 
wages to clear the fifteen million acres which 
are annually added to the cut-over domain 
would require the work of five hundred thousand 
laborers. Have I not said enough to show that 
this problem demands an altogether different 
postulation, some plan or procedure within our 
means and which we may set in motion without 
waiting for a millennium based upon vain 
hopes and born of desires that cannot be ful- 
filled? What has been tried and found wanting, 
together with other methods which upon their 
face bear the stamp of impracticability, must 
all go into the discard to clear the deck for the 
attitude of mind which shall stamp the hall- 
mark of a virile and sane beginning on the 
face of the existing situation. 

IMMIGRATION AND COLONIZATION. 

It has long been a sort of Southern fetish 
to talk of and hope for immigration to turn 
its tide our way. It is a plausible word and 
presents alluring prospects, but it has not been 
realized for perfectly valid and well known 
reasons, and for the same good reasons it is 
time that we turn our thoughts to other means 
for relief. The settlement of the Middle and 
Western States, to which frequent allusions 
are made, affords no basis for our hopes. The 
westward tide not only passed us by but drew 
into the stream large numbers from the Southern 
States who are gone never to return until con- 
ditions here have been greatly changed for the 
better. The country no longer receives a large 
influx of desirable foreign agirculturists with a 
land hunger centuries old to be satiated for 
the taking. These richer lands of the Middle 
West are taken and the tide has changed the 
direction of its flow towards other lands and 

21 



foreign countries which, for the time being, at 
least, present more inviting conditions. The 
Southern cut-over lands for general farming 
purposes are not so good and therefore fail to 
satisfy the migratory man-animal in his search 
for a new home, and the social aspects of the 
South make no compelling appeals to the man 
who has lived happily and prospered elsewhere. 

No, that lane is too narrow; this cut-over 
land is our own problem. Let us face the truth 
and solve it at home. It can be done. We 
possess the means to do it and the fact that there 
are thorns on the bush makes the game all the 
more exciting for those who will engage in it 
with the right spirit, and to such the practical 
results will not only confirm the wisdom of 
their course but will bring them the richer 
reward of deserved achievement, which time 
does not corrode nor thieves appropriate. 

Great movements of peoples from one place 
to another are caused by unrest and a desire 
for better living conditions. This situation 
prevails to a greater extent among the wage 
earners in the large industrial centers than 
among those who are engaged in rural pur- 
suits. The former class, even if it could be 
persuaded to settle on these lands, would prove 
unfit for the task, which could only result in 
making a bad situation worse. Until the South 
can match the superior advantages and greater 
social attractions which make for success and 
contentment elsewhere, it will do well to keep 
the labor it now has. Our immediate concern, 
therefore, is to keep what we have and raise 
more by improving the conditions under which 
people may more easily earn a good living and 
achieve higher physical and mental standards. 
Labor movements are induced by offers of better 
living condiitons and we can do a great deal to 
develop from theory into reality the things which 
make for desirable social environment, intel- 
lectual advancement and material well being 
in the South because we are blessed with the 
means and the abilities for using them to these 
ends. The dawn of this new era waits upon 
nothing more essential than a consistent atti- 
tude of mind. 



22 



FEDERAL STIMULUS OF SETTLEMENT 
SLOW. 

I have read with much pleasure and profit 
the printed addresses delivered last November 
before the Southern Land Congress by Messrs. 
H. T. Cory and Elwood Mead, Consulting Engi- 
neers of the United States Reclamation Service, 
Department of the Interior. These men have, 
in a most able manner, illuminated the existing 
situation with reference to reclamation of waste 
lands in general and the quickened realization 
on the part of our Government officials for the 
urgent necessity of Federal and State aid to pro- 
vide rural homes for the returning soldiers and 
sailors, and also for others of our citizenship, 
to the end that the world may be suppHed 
with more food and other necessities for com- 
fortable living. Under our political system the 
practical reclamation of waste lands and their 
disposal to colonists or other settlers must of 
necessity be slow. It cannot escape the pressure 
of conflicting self-interest by communities 
and persons in its projects and policies. Direct 
Federal control will likely be first extended to 
the more favorable soils and where opportu- 
nities are more inviting than the generality 
of cut-over lands afford. 

Mr. Cory in his careful treatment of the 
colonization idea (pages 10-11) affords a clear 
perspective of its possibilities-and they are 
only suggestions, not realities, nor even settled 
purposes so far as Uncle Sam is concerned. 
His expressed hope, if realized, that even one 
million acres may be selected — a mere freckle 
on the face of the total available area — does 
not go to the root of the situation which con- 
fronts the owners of cut-over land, nor would 
it satisfy the communities which are so gen- 
erally affected thereby. The hope is a vague 
one and without precedent, and by the utmost 
stretching of my credulity I cannot picture to 
myself floods of returning sailors and soldiers 
eager to assume the self-denial and practical 
fortitude involved in the processes of wrenching 
prosperity from the generality of cut-over lands, 
and paying therefor with improvements "eighty 
to one hundred dollars an acre", or even half 
that sum, because better lands in more desirable 
surroundings can yet be had in abundance at 

23 



lower prices. The soldiers and sailors will 
soon have been demobilized and returned to 
their former homes and vocations, and long 
before such colonization projects can possibly 
get under way with Federal, State or other 
public co-operation. 

Granting that all obstacles will be surmounted 
and that such colonies will actually be estab- 
lished, many years must elapse before the suc- 
cess of such an enterprise on cut-over lands can 
be demonstrated. Meanwhile, according to 
Mr. Moore (page 2 of his printed address), 
the total area of cut-over lands is being added 
to at the rate of fifteen million acres yearly. 
Is it not clear that a more immediate and defi- 
nite measure must be applied to oflFset even these 
daily increments? But, let us not fail to take 
advantage of these immigration and coloni- 
zation forces for they are good and desirable, 
though not sufficient unto our needs. 

STATE AID AND PRIVATE OWNERSHIP. 

Federal and State governments have gone 
far towards the establishment of the principle 
that it is not only a proper function of govern- 
ments to lend their aid to rural pursuits and the 
development of natural resources, but that it 
is a very wise and necessary policy which will, 
in future, receive increasing consideration by 
our lawmakers because it is peculiarly responsive 
to popular opinion and human necessities. 

The rapid expansion of such programs may 
be anticipated with certainty and that the 
benefits will justify such a course is beyond 
doubt, but in the very nature of things the exact 
form and direction of such aids and their prac- 
tical administrative application will also in- 
creasingly bring to the fore such inevitable 
struggles for preferment between localities and 
personal interests as are common to every 
opportunity where advantages at the "public 
crib" are concerned. Every state and every 
congressional district will be on hand with its 
chosen representatives and its organized lobbies 
as special pleaders for "pie" and more pie, 
and it is a logical assumption that the funds 
for all such projects will be distributed pretty 
generally in the proportion of political repre- 

24 



sentation and for the ratable benefit of localities 
by which such funds are contributed through 
forms of taxation. This, it seems to me, must 
be the eventual outcome, at least in so far as 
Federal assistance may go, and similar logic 
seems not entirely inapplicable to State aid. 

In the circumstances, the position of private 
owners of cut-over land among lumbermen who 
are classed as prosperous or well-to-do may 
present difficulties in so far as it affords peculiar 
opportunities for attack by self-seeking moulders 
of public opinion who care more for votes than 
for equity. It cannot be refuted that the gen- 
erality of such lands were at one time a part of 
the public domain from whence they were segre- 
gated to private ownership by speculators and 
others for private gain with little regard for 
cummunity welfare. All this at the time was 
a logical and inevitable procedure encouraged 
by the immediate and prospective needs for 
lumber in other places, but with little con- 
sideration for the local consequences which 
followed and are now pressing for remedial 
action. It can hardly be said that private 
ownership destroys all public claim upon or 
interest in the utilization of this property 
and I am sure that a majority of the owners 
harbor no such narrow sentiments in relation 
thereto; on the contrary, they possess a superior 
sense of public obligation which each desires 
to liquidate in full measure at the earliest 
moment after the right manner of doing so 
has been determined. 

A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE. 

There is always great advantage in taking 
and holding the initiative and it will prove to 
have been the part of great wisdom to avoid 
unfavorable situations by anticipating them 
with methods of our own choosing and which 
can easily be devised to enlist the favorable 
support of public opinion by making visible 
and actual progress in the processes of re- 
storing cut-over lands to useful production. 
The demand for public improvements and support 
of our administrative systems demand the taxa- 
tion of property and business and since the 
valuable timber from our cut-over lands has 
gone beyond the reach of the local tax collector, 

25 



the land which remains must, and should, bear 
its fair share of the tax burden. There is no 
equitable reason — from a community stand- 
point — why it should not do so and when pro- 
perly used it can well afiford to pay such taxes. 
The use of the land is up to the owner and not 
the assessor. If one can afford to pay taxes 
on idle property, it may be his legal privilege, 
but it is wastefully wrong nevertheless, and 
in some measure excuses public interference 
by discrimination in methods of taxation or 
otherwise. There is a growing school of poli- 
tical thought which holds that idle lands should 
be so heavily taxed that they must be used 
or ultimately revert by default to the state. 

This is not the place to expand doctrines, but 
it can do no harm to remind ourselves occasionally 
that forces of unrest all over the world are be- 
coming daily more active, more discriminating 
in matters affecting th social welfare, and more 
insistent upon "the square deal" as viewed from 
the angle of those who struggle on from year 
to year for the mere necessities of life, such as 
food and apparel. Numerically these elements 
represent the big majority and through forms 
of local, district, state, Federal and inter- 
national organization are voicing their demands 
with logic and persistence which it is unwise 
to leave out of our program or policies in dealing 
with the cut-over land situation and its potential 
value, and therefore concerns the man in the 
street, who needs only to be made aware of 
his right or advantage therein to bring great 
pressure upon the powers that be to take action 
whereby he may be benefited regardless of 
its violence and the so-called legal or vested 
rights of the title holders. 

We need but follow the doctrines so widely 
imposed upon our social and business structures 
in recent years and the still more radical utter- 
ances coming from powerful sources through 
the literature of our time to appreciate the 
timeliness of a warning that we must do some 
things different, whether we want to do so or 
not. In a recent symposium of international 
expressions involving the rights of all who labor, 
"the problem of feeding and clothing the world" 
whenever or wherever the old order of things 
breaks down as it has in Russia was made the 

26 



keynote underlying all other objects and is 
proclaimed to be the foremost "right of man" 
to which all other considerations must yield 
obedience. It is, therefore, the part of wisdom 
in our situation to be mindful of the dangers 
in our pathway and leave to chance nothing 
which foresight may help us to minimize or 
avoid. 

It requires no great powers of imagination 
to appreciate the dangers with which the situa- 
tion is pregnant, nor the persuasive elements 
of moral justice underlying this tendency in 
the development of socialistic ideals. In the 
light of such considerations, which I hesitate 
to expound with greater elaboration, may it 
not prove unfortunate to exploit pubUc attention 
with reference to cut-over lands unless the owners 
concurrently demonstrate their capacity and 
desire to satisfy the demands of the public 
welfare therein by putting them to definite 
and immediate use? 

THE SMALL FARM. 

As an economic entity the "small farm" 
occupies a similar status to that of other smallish 
enterprises. It cannot compete because its 
costs are too high. The small farm is at a 
disadvantage in matters of buying, selling, 
production and transportation, when carried 
on as a competitive business. It is true, how- 
ever, that by the application of hard work and 
strict economy the small farm affords a degree 
of independence and the means of livelihood 
which has ever appealed to certain people. 
Its drawbacks, nevertheless, are so many that 
such communities are constantly losing popu- 
lation to our cities and industrial centers in 
the pursuit of better living conditions. We 
must not omit these teachings of history from 
our program and purposes. Obviously this 
human tide will not be reversed and ebb country- 
wards from our cities until better living condi- 
tions, as the term is interpreted by the masses, 
are found there. The longer hours of labor 
and all the other draw-backs which must be 
endured by those who remain permanently 
on small farms present undesirable conditions 
to our present day city folks. 



27 



I know of no industry which now presents a 
better field for investment of capital and the 
exercise of executive ability than farming as 
a business and it is an open question whether 
the "small farm", as we call it, may not cease 
to be an attractive vocation when confronted 
by such improved methods. Food production 
and its distribution are the two greatest enter- 
prises in the world; and its production is by 
far the greater of the two. Should it not, there- 
fore, be given first place in our calculations. 

ORGANIZED AGRICULTURE— 
NOT TENANTRY. 

One by one, with changing circumstances, 
the small shops and small crafts have had to 
give way to the greater forces of specialization 
and great organizations, and there is no logic 
in presuming that agriculture will continue 
untouched by or unresponsive to the economic 
laws which have caused such changes in other 
lines. The great industrial organizations with 
all their faults and earlier crudities have neither 
enslaved, impoverished nor debased the masses. 
On the contrary, and within one generation 
these organizations have so greatly improved 
the living conditions of the masses that the plain 
working man of today enjoys education, com- 
forts, pleasures and a degree of independence 
which fifty years ago were beyond the reach 
of the well-to-do. The power of centralized 
capital and energy must prevail where older 
but unsound ideals cease to be expedient. 
Great agricultural organizations are equally 
desirable and may become as necessary as in 
other industries before we shall provide the 
superior rural living conditions which could 
attract labor from city to country. 

It will not be a form of landlordism and 
tenantry; that relic of feudalism is dead beyond 
revival. As we live and learn, we see clearly 
that labor is achieving its own independence 
and dictating its own terms, and aside from the 
inevitable breaking of eggs for this omelet a 
backward look to our situation — as it was ten, 
twenty or thirty years ago — cannot fail to con- 
vince the least thoughtful among us that in spite 
of the friction incidental to the astonishing 

28 



changes through which we have come, the world 
is better off because the masses are better off. 

Organized industry when efficiently conducted 
not only provides opportunity for remunerative 
employment under desirable living conditions, 
but it also provides safe and well managed 
investments for the person of small means. The 
preferred securities which supply capital for our 
great enterprises are largely absorbed by the sav- 
ings of the working men and women, either directly 
through their savings banks. This is altogether 
a desirable situation and points to greater social 
stability, when a majority of the wage earners 
shall have acquired a substantial interest in 
something and a corresponding control over 
the sources of their employment; how superior 
to the false ideal of the small farms and crafts 
where drudgery must prevail to sustain a mere 
existence which some of us still call "the good 
old days". 

I am interested in a Michigan agricultural 
industry known as "Simpson Acres". It is 
a very profitable enterprise consisting of several 
highly improved farms utilized for stock, swine, 
poultry, and draft animals, and supplemented 
by a general store, blacksmith shop, cannery, 
dairy and meat market, and will soon have its 
own little bank for the convenience of its work- 
men and patrons. This enterprise is con- 
ducted by an experienced manager. Labor 
is paid going wages for conventional hours and 
the living conditions are attractive, hence there 
is no labor shortage. We are providing cot- 
tages on small tracts which may be owned or 
rented by those employed about the business, 
and are thus not only meeting the main objections 
to rural living but are providing superior allure- 
ments for people from the towns. Families 
who could not maintain themselves for lack of 
capital and experience in small business ventures 
or on small farms may here under organized 
capital and skillful direction enjoy all the de- 
sirable features of outdoor life with the least 
discomfort or risk. No capital is needed to set 
up a home like that, and in time many of the 
employees may become part owners of the enter- 
prise, because it affords an opportunity for safe 
investment at maximum returns. 



29 



During the past fiscal year, Simpson Acres 
earned enough from its store alone to pay 6% 
upon the whole investment. Forty acres in 
grapes cleared another 3%. And th.ese are 
merely incidents. Simpson Acres buys at 
wholesale and sells at retail to a great extent. 
It does things in a big way not open to the small 
farmer. It is a producer and merchant com- 
bined, and does business in the best way for 
all concerned. I sometimes call it "Happy 
Acres", because it cures the grouch. It is a 
real "home maintenance unit". 

ADAPTABILITY OF CUT-OVER PINE 
LANDS. 

Encouraging signs, striking at the root of 
the situation, were particularly illuminated 
at the New Orleans meeting in 1917 by Mr. 
F. B. Enochs, Fernwood, Miss., and Mr. J, 
Lewis Thompson, Houston, Texas, as reported in 
the "Dawn of a New Constructive Era". From 
the sum of knowledge contributed by some thirty- 
eminent speakers there, nothing so graphically 
displayed the results of self-reliant action as 
the testimony of these two men who emphasized 
the importance of a proper "mental attitude" 
as a practical factor in our problems. 

While it must be conceded that certain limited 
areas of cut-over land have been cleared and 
brought under cultivation with profit to the 
owner, the preponderance of testimony which 
such attempts have produced clearly proves 
that success is the exception and not the rule, 
and upon analysis of the failures we perceive 
that the scarcity of farm labor, high cost of 
indispensable fertilizer, remote markets, and 
similar basic conditions were the responsible 
factors, and until these unfavorable conditions 
have been greatly changed for the better other 
methods involving lesser hazards must be adopted 
and carried out. 

Almost every section contains at least a few 
acres that may be advantageously cleared for 
raising garden truck and justify the keeping of 
poultry, pigs and a milch cow or two, and thereby 
contribute much towards the comforts of family 
life, but these little home units are only justified 
where and when other remunerative employment 

30 



may be had. The importance of such "home 
units" is not generally appreciated and they do 
not receive the consideration from the big land 
owners which they merit. The character of 
the houses and other conveniences are as a rule 
extremely uninviting, and ill suited to encourage 
permanent occupation or that degree of con- 
tentment which encourages the birth rate among 
their occupants. 

Except in the cities and industrial towns through- 
out the great cut-over land areas in the South 
the birth rate and immigration may not keep 
pace with the losses in population, unless those 
who are here in the capacity of proprietors 
take come action to exploit their lands in a 
more logical manner and thus create the oppor- 
tunities which justify the processes of increasing 
the population. This task will prove less arduous 
than may at first appear to be the case because 
it parallels the self-interest of all other enter- 
prises in the territory and therefore will meet 
with willing and hearty co-operation. 

NEGROES AN ASSET TO THE SOUTH. 

We already have a colored population which 
under progressive encouragements would respond 
to our needs and prove itself desirable because 
of the greater birth rate among people of color 
and their fitness to perform manual labor under 
the prevailing climatic and social conditions 
in the South. I feel very confident that the 
raising of more and better negroes in the South 
is as much to be desired as the raising of good 
animals. 

THE ANIMAL INDUSTRIES. 

In support of the logic presented in the pre- 
ceding pages and what I shall have to say under 
this caption, the reader is referred to the state- 
ments made by Mr. Moore under the title 
"Colonization Inadequate to Place the Vast, 
Idle Acreage into Prompt Use", page 3 of his 
printed address before the Southern Land 
Congress, November, 1918. There, without 
ambiguity, we are told, in substance, that the 
usual farm colonization efforts are inadequate 
and will not solve the South's and our problem; 
the lumbermen for whom he was speaking 

31 



had met in 1917 at New Orleans, and whose 
directors had previously assembled in Chicago, 
had reached the conclusion "that despite all 
individual and collective efforts made in the 
past their problem was accentuated"; and we 
are told that after three days devoted to a con- 
sideration of the question "of the best immediate 
future use to which cut-over lands should be 
put" the conference evolved an opinion that 
the "South" should "continue by the process 
of evolution following in the footsteps of more 
developed sections of the country which went 
through a period of livestock raising on the 
open range before intensive farming ensued". 

PASSING THE BUCK. 

My sympathies go out to friend Moore over 
the struggle it must have cost him to announce 
the opinion thus evolved by the directors. 
His usual flow of good English is wanting. 
"Immediate future use" is somewhat of a paradox 
and that our "lumbermen are not agriculturists" 
is an invalid alibi. The determination to seek 
advice from officials of Federal and State gov- 
ernments is to be commended only in so far 
as all helpful information on any subject is 
desirable, but it was not made clear what con- 
structive knowledge or assistance the State 
and Federal officials might render in the situa- 
tion, unless to facilitate the "passing of the 
buck" and thereby relieve the present owners 
of the land its burdensome taxes and other 
problems which a use of such lands entails. 

Throughout the printed addresses is mani- 
fested a purpose or desire to shift the burdens 
and responsibilities for the useful treatment 
of the land from its owners to other shoulders. 
If it could be done, it would be the easy way 
out, and I would have no occasion to intrude 
my divergent views. It is admitted that 
past efforts to get out from under have re- 
sulted in disappointment, and unless the advice 
obtained from Government officials shall over- 
turn the causes which underlie the present 
adverse status of the situation the result will 
remain much as it is. while Father Time pro- 
ceeds to garner us one by one into that myste- 
rious land where each must choose his chamber 
in the silent halls of death. 

32 



What I am contending for is, that until other 
methods become available, and as a logical aid 
to their earlier realization, the grazing of cut- 
over range must be inaugurated and developed 
by the present owners of the land. It is so 
self-evident as to require no argument here, 
that all other forces which may help in working 
out an adequate solution of the problem should 
be courted, but until tangible results are shown 
enthusiasm will cool off. It requires sub- 
stantial progress to keep up the spirit of the 
game. Advice is cheap, but when it falls down 
in practice it may prove expensive. 

This cold feet attitude of the landowners 
must change before all these combined forces 
will insure a victory of proud and profitable 
proportions; it is impossible to conjure a rainbow 
of hope from anything less tangible in this 
situation. A determination "to follow in the 
footsteps of more developed sections of the 
country which first went through a period 
of livestock raising on the open range before 
intensive farming ensued", is most wise in 
principle and in our case seems lacking only a 
determination to practice the principle. When 
the underlying advantages "of more developed 
sections of the country" are analyzed, we 
are made painfully aware of the fact that such 
sections presented opportunities and attrac- 
tions which are not present in our cut-over land. 
Such developments have passed us by and will 
not voluntarily intrude themselves on our domain. 
Is it not self-evidence that a policy of "watchful 
waiting" cannot solve our problems unless we 
do some real hustling while we wait? 

ANIMAL RAISING VERSUS LUMBERING. 

The raising of domestic animals is a bigger 
and less hazardous business than lumbering. 
It is more attractive and genteel in every way, 
and has a permanency in the affairs of men upon 
which the careers of generations may be fore- 
ordained with safety, pleasure and profit. 
It is a big business for big men, to be conducted 
in a big way, and it is not equally feasible 
for lesser men of smaller means. 

The essential requisites are an abundance 
of permanent range and water, supplemented 

33 



/\^/d 



by a favorable climate. These ideal conditions 
are more generously combined in the territory 
of our vSouthern cut-over lands than elsewhere 
on this continent, and a ready cash market 
for the products in any quantity is equally well 
assured. Is anything more needed to justify 
my reiterated pleading for a change of mental 
attitude? I believe not, and if mistaken in 
this surmise must I not also revise my opinion 
regarding the business sagacity of those who 
own this virgin empire of great opportunities. 

Instead of lying awake nights to think of 
means whereby this El Dorado of promise 
may be given over to others, it deserves to be 
regarded in the light of a fortunate possession, 
because in a few years it can be turned into 
sources of profit that cannot fail to support 
its owners and their descendants in luxury 
indefinitely. Where else and by what other 
means may we find another prospect so inviting. 
The promise of these great ranches possess 
allurements for me that are irresistible and it 
will always remain a source of regret that I 
was not blessed with the "burden" of owning 
fifty thousand acres of cut-over land. 

If it were true that the land could not be 
profitably c mployed by its owners either in- 
dividually or collectively with all the advantages 
of money, business training, and other resources 
at their command, this in itself would present 
a deterrent spectacle of risk and hazard to the 
soldiers, sailors and other persons who are less 
a^^Ved by training, aptitude and capital. 
It i^a fact that the land is incapable of a fair 
return when put to consistent uses, but it does 
preclude intensive agriculture from consideration, 
without first using them for grazing purposes. 

ADVICE VERSUS INDIVIDUAL ACTION. 

The knowledge of this condition, it seems 
to me, will operate with equal persuasion in 
retarding future development in severality 
as it has in bygone days, and it must be apparent 
that no advice which can be obtained from public 
officials can, in any way, change this situation 
except by fostering misleading expectations, 
or exploiting their interest as an endorsement 
of worth and productivity which the land 

34 



cannot redeem. No real progress could result 
from such methods; on the contrary, when the 
returns are in, the situation will have been pre- 
judiced and made more difficult to deal with 
than it now is, and a hurtful public sentiment 
might be aroused thereby. I would deem myself 
unworthy of the friendship I claim of lumber- 
men did I hestitate to express myself most 
frankly upon these, to me, seemingly vital 
considerations. It is so much easier to echo 
the sounds most pleasing to the ear, even 
though it proves to be a mistaken kindness in 
the end. Therefore, at the risk of forfeiting 
applause from the left, my convictions remain 
firm that events will vindicate my course. 

Covering the land with flocks and herds will 
of itself attract widespread attention among 
thoughtful and desirable people It is good 
advertising and will greatly hasten the day of 
opportunity to dispose of lands in large and small 
tracts, because it establishes their desirability 
as nothing else can do so well. When that 
happens the owner will be much less anxious 
to part with his land, for the advantages will 
be more in his favor. While a thing is a "drug" 
on the market, the seller is always at a dis- 
advantage and the thing is worth only what 
it will bring when a buyer has been found. 
Grazing in any form as to the animal chosen, 
tends to build up land by improving the kinds 
and quantity of grasses produced from year 
to year. It also makes easier the ultimate 
clearing of stumps from the land, and by re- 
ducing the prevalence of destructive fires 
encourages reforestation. Land subjected to 
grazing for several seasons will generally pro- 
vide sustenance for two animals, where but one 
could thrive in the beginning. It is this process 
of reciprocal stimulation which provides the 
necessary humus at an ever increasing ratio. 
It is by this process of more animals, more grass; 
more grass, more animals, that even very poor 
soil becomes enriched and suitable for intensive 
tillage. 

The conduct of livestock industries will 
inevitably bring in people who will settle on the 
same land without being made wholly dependent 
upon its returns for a livelihood This is a 
logical and altogether a desirable procedure, 

35 



and insures the availability of needed labor. 
Forage crops for wintering stock are a necessity 
and will further encourage settlement of smaller 
tracts, and thus these independent forces 
supplement one another to build up commu- 
nities on a stable and lasting basis. 

WHAT ANIMAL? 

Horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, swine, goats, 
sheep, and poultry; all are commendable and 
may be profitably raised in the South with 
proper care and management. All should be 
bred to the extent of local demands or in re- 
sponse to this or that particular requirement, 
and in some localities dairy or beef cattle can 
be raised to good purpose for the outside markets. 
The same will be found true of some draft 
animals in excess of local needs. Swine and 
poultry are exceedingly desirable about every 
rural home, but have their limits in our present 
condition of rural backwardness, inexperience 
and disinclination of provide such stock with 
the care it should receive, and therefore diver- 
sified animal husbandry would result in dis- 
appointment as a means for using the range 
afforded by cut-over lands. 

The dairy herd for profit requires a practical 
knowledge of and a liking for the business. 
It is a tedious process to build up a good dairy 
herd and its proper care calls for stables, silos 
and quite an array of other costly utensils 
and equipment. There must also be provided 
suitable supplies of grain, ensilage and other 
crops to supplement the range grasses which 
by themselves are not adequate to the needs 
of dairy or beef cattle. Generally speaking, the 
cattle business develops slowly. The annual 
turnover is relatively small. It calls for a 
disproportionate investment in permanent im- 
provements for which capital is lacking and which 
would represent a fixed charge eventually to 
be absorbed by the returns. The "tick" also 
demands consideration and imposes burdensome 
handicaps where cattle are concerned The 
"tick" will long continue to demand a degree 
of vigilance and warfare even where cattle 
prevail in small numbers, and would be exceed- 
ingly difficult to deal with where millions of 
range cattle are involved. 

36 



I have thus presented quite an array of things 
in a more or less unfavorable aspect, which is 
quite foreign to my inclinations and preferences, 
because my normal impulses are optimistic. 
I experience delight in boosting things, and 
the necessity for depreciating any enterprise 
requires a real effort on my part, but this cut- 
over land problem is of such magnitude, embraces 
the future welfare of so many people, and pre- 
sents so many perplexing angles that I feel 
it a duty to express my convictions without 
reserve. Anything less than candor would 
only result in harm to those whose interests 
I have at heart! 

THE ANSWER: SHEEP. 

Happily, in this woolly little friend of the 
human family the world over, we find every 
attribute for a complete solution of the problem. 
There is no other domestic "critter" so well 
suited to the purpose in mind, unless it be a 
good goat All others are outclassed by a wide 
margin and there are substantial reasons for 
giving sheep the preference over goats on the 
generality of cut-over land. 

Mutton, wool, tallow, pelts and bone are con- 
spicuous among the human necessities which 
the whole world wants, and the time has passed 
never to return when an over-supply of these 
commodities will be experienced. Wool, in 
all history, has met no successful rival in pro- 
viding the most ideal clothing and other com- 
forts deemed well-nigh indispensible. Wool 
grease (degras) is an item of conspicuous im- 
portance in many of our industries, for which 
substitutes are rare and costly. I need not dwell 
upon the food value of mutton in this age of 
meat scarcity, which, with coming years, will 
be further accentuated — except to remind the 
reader of its pronounced superiority in values 
over all other kinds of meat, save pork. Even 
in this comparison good mutton sustains its 
well deserved equality. Mutton tallow also 
possesses superior qualities for many uses as 
food and in the arts. The value of sheepskin 
in the manufacture of wearing apparel, book- 
binding, upholstering and for a great variety 
of other useful purposes, is growing in favor 
day by day. Bone and other offal have their 

37 



uses in important particulars, so that almost 
nothing from a sheep is waste produced; even 
the hoofs are worked up into buttons and glue. 
In some parts of the world, sheep's milk is used 
for human food, and is said to be exceedingly- 
palatable. I must say, however, that I do not 
fancy the taste of it. 

The sheep, barring Mr. Ram, is a companion- 
able, docile and tractable animal; a good rustler 
and comparatively immune from decimating 
infections or other devastating diseases. In 
these respects, under sensible care, sheep present 
fewer drawbacks by far than either swine or 
cattle. They are more prolific than most other 
domestic animals, excepting swine or poultry, 
and come to early maturity. Their progeny 
when conserved may in a few years populate 
all our cut-over land if given a fair start. Sheep 
bring in a money return thrice annually, from 
wool, lambs and mutton. They are continual 
producers in one form or another, and the increase 
reaches a tangible market value within four 
months of its birth. 

A flock of healthy sheep is almost like money 
in the bank. They represent liquid assets to 
a greater degree than most other animals be- 
cause the buildings and other improvements 
needed are simple and inexpensive. In the 
Southern States sheep require no housing at 
any season, but should be provided with shade 
during hot weather. Bearing ewes should be 
provided with supplementary rations during 
the winter months to insure strong lambs. 
Sheep require less feeding than cattle and are 
capable of more completely sustaining themselves 
in good to fair condition on cut-over range 
grasses than any other animal, excepting goats. 

Other desirable results that follow the grazing 
of sheep on such land, due to their habit of 
close nipping and their ruminating nature, are 
the minimizing of fires, which annually destroy 
the meager humus and inflict other costly 
damages which cannot otherwise be so easily 
overcome, and the rapid change from bunch 
and wire grass to more prolific and nutritious 
varieties which invariably takes place on native 
soils when closely grazed by sheep, performs 
the most important function of all in the process 

38 



of soil building, which is so admittedly indis- 
pensable before cut-over pine land may be 
classed as desirable or suitable for the more 
intensive agricultural pursuits. This fact alone 
places the sheep in the front rank as a pioneer 
to provide the beginning of a new era for the 
South; the rib-work to which may be fastened 
a healthy, growing, virile, social structure of 
enduring qualities and in numbers suffiicent to 
give every acre of available land a value which, 
in the present situation, would seem fabulous 
or unthinkable. 

WOOL PRODUCTION IN THE SOUTH. 

Because animals are given heavier fleeces 
for their protection in the colder regions of 
the north does not mean that wool growing 
in the south must be less profitable. Such is 
not the case; on the contrary, the South pre- 
sents some very distinct advantages for sheep 
raising over its northern neighbor. 

The heavier fleeces of the colder north are 
matters of gradual evolution, requiring more 
than one season for their full development. 
That is to say, when sheep which were bred 
in warmer climates are transferred to colder 
environments, their fleeces will not forthwith 
take on increased weight, but several seasons, 
and sometimes the effect of climate on breeding, 
are required to work the changes in these 
respects; and the reverse is true of northern 
bred animals when transferred to warmer 
climes. Northern bred sheep in some par- 
ticulars are more vigorous and survive a change 
to warmer climes better than southern sheep 
would stand a sudden change to the colder 
and longer winters of the north. 

In the northern states, such as Minnesota, 
for instance, the average grazing season on the 
range is about five and a half months and it 
costs from $3.00 to $5.00 a head there for feed 
to carry sheep through the fall, winter and spring; 
expensive equipment is required for protection 
against the elements; their food must be stored 
in barns, silos or granaries; and the feeding 
itself requires no small amount of labor. 

In these respects the south presents very 
distinct advantages; the grazing season is 



several months longer and the feeding season 
correspondingly shorter; less capital is required 
for buildings and feed; the lambing season is 
six weeks earlier; and fewer losses occur from 
adverse weather conditions. Southern lambs 
when properly cared for are ready for the earlier 
markets, when prices usually range several 
cents a pound higher; this alone makes up for 
any incidental differences in weight of the fleeces. 

Even during the months when the feeding 
of flocks in the south is necessary, they require 
lighter rations than must be given in colder 
climates where the animal must have more 
food as fuel to resist the cold. It should be 
remembered, too, that the food required for 
heat does not produce either wool or mutton. 

It is good practice to cross southern bred ewes 
with northern bred rams, and the gradual 
influx of northern ewes is equally desirable. 
In this way southern fleeces may be obtained 
which show up in weight pretty close to those 
raised in colder climes. At the most the dif- 
ference in weight is seldom as much as two pounds 
per fleece, and even at this rate, with the price 
of wool at fifty cents in primary markets, the 
southern grower saves double that sum from 
his lower cost of wintering; while the higher 
prices for lambs in the early markets give 
him another advantage, so that when all the 
ins and outs are set side by side it will be found 
that wool and mutton may be raised on cut-over 
land to compete very successfully with that 
from any other section of our country. 



THE SHEEP KILLING DOG REDIVIVUS. 

I almost forgot to make mention of the sheep- 
killing dog, not that it greatly matters, for he 
is more or less of a scarecrow, and a much 
maligned creature. The sheep-killing dog has 
been made to bear the sins committed by his 
two-legged brethren who inhabit th; waste 
places thereabouts and whose means of sub- 
sistence are made easier by the proximity of 
mutton. For the running of sheep in large 
flocks, good dogs, such as collies and airedales, 
raised with the sheep and trained to afford them 
security, are necessary adjuncts of the business, 

40 



along with experienced herders. Such supervi- 
sion is a necessity for other reasons and will 
amply suffice to stamp out the dog menace, 
with or without legislative enactments. 



DETERMINATION OF ACREAGE AND 
BREEDS. 

Experience alone can determine how many 
sheep any given area will support. The land 
varies in grazing value to such an extent that 
no general rule can be given, but it can be 
safely assumed that the areas grazed over will 
be thereby improved from year to year and pro- 
vide sustenance for increasing numbers. I would 
say in a general way that the less desirable 
lands may from the start support one sheep to 
three acres, and ultimately a sheep to every 
acre. Other land will do better, and some 
perhaps not so well. In the nature of the case, 
overcrowding is not an immediate danger, 
and there must be room for the normal growth 
of the flocks, which, under intelligent manage- 
ment, is rapid. An average of a lamb a year 
per ewe is well within the limit of modest ex- 
pectations. A lesser average would be evidence 
of incapacity or other preventable causes. 
An average gain of a lamb and a half per ewe 
is excellent and insures very profitable returns, 
but it is possible to achieve even higher averages 
by selective breeding from twin mothers and 
fathers, and skillful management. 

What breed or kind of sheep to select, suggests 
material enough to fill volumes, but for the pur- 
pose of this article "what you can get" is a 
sufficient answer. Range sheep must be very 
carefully selected with regard to age and health, 
by experienced buyers, and from the best wool 
and mutton producing stocks to be found. 
It is well to start right in these respects and 
with particular assurance of securing none but 
healthy animals. All other desirable qualities 
may be rapidly developed by selective breeding 
and generally by introducing judiciously selected 



The South, in a way, is a lazy man's country 
and this native trait fits into the sheep grazing 
business with peculiar nicety, while it holds 

41 



the menace of disaster over such enterprise 
as farming and land clearing operations. This 
is also one of those conditions the remedy for 
which, if one exists will be slow in effecting a 
cure. Hence, it must be taken into account 
in our search for the best solution of the cut- 
over problem. 

ATTRACTIVE RETURNS ON INVESTMENT. 

On the basis of one lamb per ewe, with the 
sexes equally divided, one thousand ewes would 
produce the first year one thousand fleeces 
and five hundred lambs for the market, and 
raise the flock to fifteen hundred, and during 
the fourth year, at the same rate (no improve- 
ments anticipated) we have for market three 
thousand three hundred and seventy-five fleeces, 
sixteen hundred and eighty lambs, and a flock 
numbering five thousand ewes. At this point 
it is best to turn out the old ewes, or earlier 
unless they were acquired young. Can't you 
see waves of wool where now is nothing but sad, 
sordid, scorching waste? 

The human equation enters so largely into 
the degree of success which may be wrung from 
any enterprise that for the purpose of this 
article I deemed it prudent to confine my figures 
to normal averages. Some persons would, of 
course, do better and others worse, for such is 
the law of human endeavor in all undertakings. 
The annual wool clip from Southern bred ani- 
mals is somewhat less than from northern 
sheep, but it costs so much less to winter them 
here that it leaves a balance in favor of the South. 

WHEN, WHERE AND HOW TO OBTAIN 
SHEEP. 

Perhaps, if we are real good boys, Santa 
Claus will bring us a Bo-peep for Christmas, but, 
seriously, as Sherman said in '78, "the way to 
resume, is to resume"; likewise, the way to 
obtain sheep is to get them, which in our 
situation, means to go after them where they 
are and while the getting is possible, for be it 
remembered that there is much cut-over and 
other land in other localities crying for develop- 
ment with an eye to sheep. Minnesota, Wis- 
consin and Michigan have awakened to the 

42 



needs of the situation presented by their poorer 
cut-over lands, of which vast areas remain idle 
for causes very similar to those now confronting 
us of the South, and these states, with their 
accustomed hustle, will be found competing 
for sheep with increasing activity as time goes 
on. Shall we evolute by sitting idle until their 
wants have been supplied, or will we start the 
tide in our direction and keep it coming before 
the process is made more difficult or improbable. 
Some time ago, in Michigan, the West Michigan 
Improvement Association, co-operating with 
other forces, created a promising movement of 
sheep from the West towards the cut-over 
lands in that State, but it struck a snag when 
the landowners gave the leasing and land values 
a skyward tilt which in some instances amounted 
to 1000%. This danger cannot be altogether 
avoided where the desires and necessities of 
diverse land ownerships prevail, but it can be 
minimized. The Cut-Over Land Department 
could, for example, be empowered to do the 
buying under the personal direction of some 
qualified head assisted by men in the field who 
understand the business. I do not have in 
mind theoretical professors, but practical men 
to whom the smell of wool is like unto perfume; 
men whose sheep sense has been acquired by 
hard knocks. Such men are available, and like 
all well chosen help earn their own cost with a 
profit for the employer. Such men are an in- 
vestment, not an expense. 

Two thousand sheep under a single ownership 
afford a fair unit to begin with. Smaller 
flocks for ranging are not so desirable, but may 
nevertheless be profitably developed. The 
Western range lands are disintegrating and 
doubtless some sheepmen there could be per- 
suaded to move South with their flocks, if 
permanent range at low cost be assured for 
a sufficiently long period, but as a rule the sheep 
owner shies off from the prospect of a "raise 
before the draw" where private ownership of 
land prevails. With these handicaps in mind 
and their consequences duly appreciated, I 
have no doubt that methods of meeting the 
difficulties involved may be worked out. 

If, as suggested, a sheep department of the 
Association be created, the individual members 

. 43 



who desire to stock sheep could formulate re- 
quisitions covering their requirements and 
file same with the department to be filled first 
come, first served, or on some basis of pro rata 
allotment. If we assume fifteen million to be 
the annual acreage rate by which the cut-over 
land areas are expanding and that a sheep per 
three acres is good practice, we find that it 
requires the introduction of five million sheep 
a year to establish an equilibrium and that 
we must remain dependent upon the normal 
rate of increase, or a more ambitious beginning, 
to supply the needs of the other millions upon 
millions of acres which we have already accu- 
mulated; and in this particular let us not lose 
sight of the greater density of sheep population 
to be supported by the process of improving 
the range. 

Long ago the State of Florida held third or 
fourth place as a sheep grower. There is no 
valid reason why the entire South for a generation 
hence may not enjoy the distinction of pro- 
ducing more sheep than any other part of the 
world of equal area. The annual returns from 
salable sheep products, not taking into account 
the benefits to the soil, etc., of one hundred 
million sheep (this number is only half of what 
we can raise ) presents an income which makes 
the returns from the cotton crop piled on top of 
the returns from the lumber business look like 
a piker. Such a flow of wealth from lands now 
idle, when set in motion cannot fail to boom 
public improvements and afford other attrac- 
tions which must result in collateral develop- 
ments beyond our ken to realize. It could not 
fail to multiply our sparse population several 
times. I am utterly unable to see how such 
possibilities when they are more fully appre- 
ciated can fail to change that attitude of mind 
which, until now, has been feeding on the hope 
that the cut-over land, the foundation of all 
this, is an undesirable possession and to be gotten 
rid of — even if it were easily possible to dispose 
of it in the present circumstances, which, for- 
tunately or unfortunately, is not the case. 
I would look upon it as a mistake rather than 
good fortune. 



44 



CONCLUSION. 

If my remarks have made no impression upon 
the readers, or have failed thus far to inspire 
them with the necessity for a changed attitude 
of mind towards the great problem of "what to 
do with our cut-over land" and how to go about 
it, then I fear that anything which I might add 
to this article would be equally without purpose 
and would serve only to further tire the patience 
of my good friends, if it did not also exasperate. 
I shall, therefore, make my adieu with the 
promise that nothing would bring me greater 
pleasure than to feel that I may, in some manner, 
be of future service in aiding this great work 
of converting an empire of devastated areas 
into prosperous ranches and homes. 



45 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

I "'" '"" "" "" 




003 154 471 3 



